So April 29th is right around the corner. You know what that means. It’s about time to shelve all of your current titles and return to the new and improved Liberty City. Knowing that my modest stack of games would soon resemble week-old leftovers in the corner of the fridge, I recently took steps to bring some closure to a few unresolved adventures. This isn’t something I took lightly either, since free time is so incredibly precious to game guide authors. So I put some serious thought into which games I should tackle. Should I play through Mass Effect one more time? Nope. Don’t have the time. Maybe I should finally finish BioShock? But I really like to play that one in the dark, so that limits me to night hours. Yeah, that’s right. I haven’t finished BioShock. My progress was interrupted by a couple of back-to-back projects (Battalion Wars 2 and Assassin’s Creed) and further delayed by the narcotic known as Rock Band. What about that unopened copy of Army of Two? No, if I want to shoot stuff I should really spend more time reaching the rank of Warrant Officer in Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Orange Box? Too daunting. Plus I already finished Portal; one outta five ain’t bad!

So what did I settle on? Assassin’s Creed. Although I assisted on the guide, I never really got the chance to play through the game from beginning to end; that wasn’t my job. In fact, I tried to shield myself from the narrative’s “secrets”…at least the best I could. Even though I know every nook and cranny of each city and the Kingdom, I’m still having a blast knifing unsuspecting Templars, shoving archers off of rooftops, and taking on scores of guards in epic sword fights. Right now I’m wrapping up Memory Block 5, working my way toward Sibrand in Acre. So I’m hoping I have the time to complete Altair’s journey before I’m forced to vacate the Holy Land.

But Altair might have to wait…and Niko Bellic along with him. Instead, I’m scheduled to preside over Baldur’s journey in Too Human, with pre-production getting underway soon. So it looks like my Liberty City escapades are already being shifted to the back burner. I’m still buying GTA IV on Tuesday, but it will probably remain on my backlog stack for some time to come. At least it will have good company.